ZWF: The fight over IVF in Alabama
Zander's Weekend Facts #107: Sunday, February 25, 2024
Inside this week’s edition of Zander’s Weekend Facts, inside the Alabama court decision that declares embryos as children, and a look at what Zander’s been reading this past week. Plus, a compilation of the top headlines you need to know about from the last seven days.
Also, go listen to the latest episode of the Zander’s Facts Podcast! Episode 133 features an update on the current NBA season, at the All-Star Break, with Zander’s Facts NBA analyst Hill Billy. Download the Zander’s Facts podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
Here are Zander’s Weekend Facts for Sunday, February 25, 2024:
Alabama Supreme Court rules IVF embryos are children
Nearly two years after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson to eliminate the constitutional right to abortion, the debate over reproductive rights continues to embroil America.
On February 16, the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled that under state law, frozen embryos can be considered as children. In a pair of wrongful death lawsuits, the all-Republican court sided with three couples who sued The Center for Reproductive Medicine at Mobile Infirmary in Mobile after an accident at the clinic resulted in their frozen embryos being destroyed.
Alabama’s top state court found that under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, the couples were able to sue as the embryos were protected under the law. The opinion, written by Justice Anthony Mitchell, stated:
“This Court has long held that unborn children are "children" for purposes of Alabama's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, § 6-5-391, Ala. Code 1975, a statute that allows parents of a deceased child to recover punitive damages for their child's death. The central question presented in these consolidated appeals, which involve the death of embryos kept in a cryogenic nursery, is whether the Act contains an unwritten exception to that rule for extrauterine children -- that is, unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed. Under existing black-letter law, the answer to that question is no: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”
As Dr. Shaun Williams, a partner in reproductive endocrinology at Illume Clinic, put it in an email to CNN, “The Alabama Supreme Court has now stated that embryos outside of the uterus are the legal equivalent of a child, and anything that can happen to an embryo can be considered the wrongful death of a minor, with legal consequences.”
In a concurring opinion, Chief Justice Tom Parker drew criticism for invoking religion. He wrote, “In summary, the theologically based view of the sanctity of life adopted by the People of Alabama encompasses the following: (1) God made every person in His image; (2) each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate; and (3) human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.”
The lone dissenting opinion, written by Justice Gregory Cook, read, “No court -- anywhere in the country -- has reached the conclusion the main opinion reaches. And, the main opinion's holding almost certainly ends the creation of frozen embryos through in vitro fertilization ("IVF") in Alabama.”
The fallout from the decision has been immense, in Alabama and around the country.
At least three embryo clinics in the state, including the Mobile clinic at the center of the case, have paused IVF services after the ruling. ABC News reported on a woman who had spent $20,000 trying to get pregnant through IVF and had her appointments canceled in the state.
The ruling also opens the door to similar decisions from other states, including the 21 that have banned or restricted abortion access since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
However, the Alabama ruling appears to have reached less of a consensus within the Republican Party than Roe’s overturning. The state’s Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall said last week that he has “no intention of using the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision as a basis for prosecuting IVF families or providers.” Alabama’s Republican Governor Kay Ivey called on members of the state legislature to pass a resolution protecting IVF. Former President Donald Trump, the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, wrote that he supported IVF access on social media.
The latest Pew Research Center polling on IVF from April 2023 shows that 61% of U.S. adults believe health insurance should cover the cost of fertility treatments. Reuters reported last week that polling by Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway found that 85% of respondents support increasing access to fertility-related procedures and services.
On Friday’s edition of NPR’s All Things Considered program, Dr. Eve Feinberg, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist at Northwestern University, explained the process of IVF treatments.
Each cycle of IVF is a multistep process that is keyed to a patient's menstrual cycle in the beginning. First, a patient needs to take injectable hormones every day for a 10- to 12-day period. Those hormones prime multiple eggs to mature inside the ovary, in little fluid-filled sacs called follicles. Patients are monitored regularly, often daily. Once those follicles reach a certain size, the patient takes a different hormone that gets the eggs ready to be retrieved.
The second step of the process is egg retrieval, which happens when the patient is under anesthesia. Once the eggs are removed, they're placed in a dish with sperm so they can be fertilized, which is Step 3 in the process.
Then comes Step 4, when the fertilized egg is is grown in the lab for about three to seven days until it has reached the blastocyst stage, “which is a highly developed embryo that contains two different cell layers — the cells that become the placenta and then the cells that become the fetus,” Feinberg explains.
At that point, the embryo is either transferred into the woman's uterus, which is Step 5, or frozen for future use. Sometimes, both scenarios happen — one embryo is transferred, while surplus embryos are frozen for later use.
For more information on this week’s top story, here’s an article from AP News - What’s next after the Alabama ruling that counts IVF embryos as children?
What Zander’s been reading
Being able to get virtually any item you want shipped free to your house, and then being able to return said item for free, have been almost universal norms of online shopping. Yet, those days may be coming to an end as retailers begin to end the practices that made shopping online so accessible.
Check out this week’s featured article at Business Insider - No more free ride - (Apple News link)
Zander’s Facts Sporting Club
Here are the top headlines from the sports world in the Sporting Club:
March Madness: Last weekend, the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee unveiled their current top 16 teams with only one month to go until the annual March Madness tournament begins. Purdue took the top overall seed in the committee’s rankings, with UConn, Houston, and Arizona all being #1 seeds. These rankings are only a current snapshot of the field and will likely be different when the final 68-team field is unveiled on March 17. Of the 16 teams that were given a top-four seed in the preview rankings, 12 of those have lost at least one game since last Saturday, with Houston being the only #1 seed to have not lost.
College Football Playoff: The model for the first 12-team College Football Playoff was finalized last week. Five of the 12 spots will be given to the five conference champions highest ranked by the committee, while the other seven spots will be the highest-ranked remaining teams. The upcoming college football season marks the first that a 12-team playoff will be used to determine the national champion. In other CFP news, discussions have also taken place surrounding expanding the playoff to 14 teams for the 2026 season.
Steve Kerr: Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr has reportedly agreed to a contract extension with the team that will make him the highest-paid coach in the NBA. The two-year, $35 million contract extension through the 2025-2026 season extends Kerr’s contract that was originally set to expire at the end of the current season. Kerr is in his 10th year as the coach of the Warriors, the third-longest active tenured coach in the league. The Warriors are currently sitting in 10th place in the Western Conference at 29-26.
MLS Season Opener: The 2024 MLS season kicked off on Wednesday with the league’s biggest attraction opening the campaign. Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami, the preseason MLS Cup favorites, got a 2-1 win over Real Salt Lake to open the season. A majority of the league’s 29 clubs began play on Saturday, with some notable results including defending champion Columbus Crew’s 1-0 win over Atlanta United, and LAFC’s 2-0 win over Seattle Sounders. Three more matches take place today, with FC Cincinnati-Toronto FC at 2:00 pm ET, Nashville SC-New York Red Bulls at 5:00 pm ET, and Inter Miami back in action at 9:00 pm ET at LA Galaxy. All MLS matches can be watched on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.
Carabao Cup: The final match of this year’s EFL Carabao Cup is set for later this morning in London. The Carabao Cup is a domestic cup competition featuring clubs from the top four leagues of the English soccer pyramid. Liverpool will meet up with Chelsea at 10:00 am ET this morning in the final of this year’s competition. The match can be watched in the U.S. on ESPN+. Liverpool have won the competition a record nine times, last winning in 2022 when they also played Chelsea in the final. Chelsea have won the competition five times, with their most recent win coming in 2015.
Rapid-fire Facts
These are top news headlines from the past week in rapid-fire fashion:
NRA Lawsuit: A jury in New York found the National Rifle Association and its former CEO Wayne LaPierre liable for misspending millions of dollars. On Friday, the jury found LaPierre was liable for $5.4 million in damages after using NRA funds to spend millions on clothes, private jets, and vacations. The NRA was also found to have broken New York law by not adopting a whistleblower policy, along with failing to include and misrepresenting information on tax forms. LaPierre resigned as head of the NRA in January. Lawyers for LaPierre had claimed the case was a “political witch hunt” during the trial.
South Carolina Primary: On Saturday, the Republican Party held its next contest on the presidential primary calendar, the South Carolina primary. Despite, former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nicki Haley hailing from the Palmetto State, former President Donald Trump was able to cruise. Trump was declared the winner with 60% of the vote, besting Haley’s 39%. Despite the loss, Haley is expected to stay in the race through Super Tuesday after launching a seven-figure ad buy through March 5. Next up in the race for the GOP nomination is the Michigan primary, which takes place on Tuesday.
Israel-Hamas Ceasefire: Negotiations are currently underway in Paris surrounding a potential ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Since the beginning of the current Israel-Hamas War on October 7, only a six-day ceasefire in November has stopped the fighting. Mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and the U.S. are hoping to break a temporary truce before Israel launches an attack on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where over one million displaced people are currently sheltering. Over 100 hostages from Israel are still believed to be held by Hamas. Gaza’s health ministry has reported close to 30,000 deaths since the war began.
Alexei Navalny: The body of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in prison earlier this month, has been given to his mother. Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin killed Navalny and that Russian authorities were pressuring Navalny’s family into a secret funeral. In response to Navalny’s death, the U.S. issued over 500 new sanctions on Russia. President Joe Biden had promised additional sanctions when he met with Navalny’s wife and daughter. Saturday marked the third anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine, which prompted the U.S. and Western allies of Ukraine to first institute sanctions against Russia.
Capital One-Discover: Two of the U.S.’ largest credit card companies revealed their intent to merge last week. On Monday, Capital One Financial announced that it plans to acquire Discover Financial Services in a deal that would give Discover shareholders 1.0192 Capital One shares for each Discover share they own. The deal is expected to create the largest credit card issuer in the U.S. The merger, one of the largest to be announced this year, is expected to undergo regulatory scrutiny, while a $1.38 billion breakup fee is reportedly included if Discover finds a different buyer.
Wrapping up the Facts
Before this edition of Zander’s Weekend Facts wraps up, here’s another reminder to check out the latest episodes of the Zander’s Facts podcast. Download and listen to the latest episode of the podcast, along with every episode of Zander’s Facts, wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also listen to every episode of the podcast on this very website. All Zander’s Facts podcast episodes are now available on zandersfacts.com under the “Zander’s Facts” tab for your enjoyment! That includes the next episode of the Zander’s Facts Podcast, which comes out this Wednesday!
That’s a wrap on this week’s edition of Zander’s Weekend Facts. The facts in print return next Sunday, March 3, 2024.
